1) Wildlife rehabbing is STUPIDLY expensive. EVERYTHING ABOUT IT is expensive, from the medications you have to buy, to the facilities you have to maintain, to the licenses and training you must have, [On 4 levels in some places, plus more licenses inspection and fees if you deal with Rabies Vector Species], to transport cages and bedding. NOTHING IS FREE, and guess what... you can't bill Mother Nature. No one pays you. SOMETIMES you get donations, but that rarely if ever covers the cost of raising one orphaned infant to a releasable age.

2) People are incredibly misinformed about wildlife. You will spend many many hours of your day educating people (who usually do not want to be educated) about things like deer "parking" where a mom will "park" her baby deer somewhere safe while she goes off to eat. Sometimes that will be in your yard. Just because you don't see the mom, doesn't mean she doesn't know what is going on.People will also do things thinking they are helping (Like feeding kitten formula to a squirrel baby, or putting a baby beaver in a bucket of water so it stays wet) that will quite often kill the animals.You have to be nice to them. It hurts sometimes. Especially in a situation like when a mom lets her 9 year old play with the baby raccoon that came up on the deck, and let it suck on her finger. That baby raccoon now has to die in most states. It did nothing wrong, the people did something wrong, but the raccoon has to die to be tested for rabies. (Which 99.99995 times out of 100 it will not have)

3) Heartbreaks come fast and hard. One day everything is peachy, and the next day someone brings a groundhog in with distemper, and suddenly every animal in your care is hideously ill and most of them will die horrible deaths and there is not a DAMNED THING you can do about it.That is one example of about 1000 I could give.

4) Wildlife vets are few and far between, they don't usually have emergency hours, and they are AMAZINGLY expensive. Even simple procedures are thousand dollar trips when you are dealing with wildlife. Also, medication for diseases that effect wildlife are often not available, or cost thousands of dollars. We had a raccoon that contracted a horrible neuro disease called EPM (Which usually is confined to horses) There is no money in treating wildlife, so there is no formulary for treating a raccoon with EPM. Hell, he wasn't even supposed to be able to contract EPM, but he did.

5) Much of what you do is only legal because they *want* to let you. The state *usually* doesn't care, and will not help you. Many states it is illegal (even if you are a licensed rehabber) to work with certain animals. If you get caught releasing that OBVIOUSLY healthy, (been in your care for over 6 mos, and has rabies shots) perfectly fine raccoon .. in some states.. that is jail time. Period.

6) It can only break your heart.

The BEST CASE SCENARIO for a wildlife rehabber is that you get the animal, you fix what is wrong with it (if anything), you make sure it hates you and everyone that looks like you, and you wave goodbye to it as it leaves. You will get attached, you will be "mom" to many animals... and they will show you love and affection.. and you will HAVE TO MAKE THEM HATE YOU. You can't do it any other way. They can't trust humans, or you will fail as a rehabber when you release them.

Worst case scenario... They come in, you do everything you legally and monetarily can.. and they die anyway, because you just can't fix everything... but hey, it's just your heart and your bank account that is broke.. and there is someone on the phone with 4 baby squirrels who's mother was just killed by a cat... so you suck it up and go again.

I lived with one for a decade, and assisted with many many things and have seen the gamut of what happens, but I am not a licensed rehabber.

A question, not an attack: why did you take the time to post this, when you obviously hate everything about wildlife rehab and spent far more time telling us how horrific it is than you did on the actual post? Did you just need an excuse to vent some of the pain, or are you trolling?

I lived with one for a decade, and assisted with many many things and have seen the gamut of what happens, but I am not a licensed rehabber.

A question, not an attack: why did you take the time to post this, when you obviously hate everything about wildlife rehab and spent far more time telling us how horrific it is than you did on the actual post? Did you just need an excuse to vent some of the pain, or are you trolling?

Because I want people to know that it takes a super serious commitment to do that kind of work that very few people have. It's amazingly rewarding, I loved doing it. I still love helping out, but it is NOT something you do on a whim.

Every spring during baby season there are a lot of feel-good stories out there that make people think that rehab work is all love and kisses from adorable baby raccoons.. And some of it is, but it's also getting up every 3 hours to feed baby squirrels that take 90 minutes to eat... and its pulling maggots out of the eye infection of a groundhog that was bitten by a cat, knowing it will probably die, but you have to try.

I just want people to know about what it is really like.. not just the funny pics and cute videos.

I see your point, but y'know, sometimes I'd like to look at pictures and think, "the only thing cuter than puppies just might be fox kits" instead of thinking, "that animal is ruining the life of the person trying to help it and will most likely die a horrific death". Especially when the headline is all about cuteness.

1) Wildlife rehabbing is STUPIDLY expensive. EVERYTHING ABOUT IT is expensive, from the medications you have to buy, to the facilities you have to maintain, to the licenses and training you must have, [On 4 levels in some places, plus more licenses inspection and fees if you deal with Rabies Vector Species], to transport cages and bedding. NOTHING IS FREE, and guess what... you can't bill Mother Nature. No one pays you. SOMETIMES you get donations, but that rarely if ever covers the cost of raising one orphaned infant to a releasable age.

2) People are incredibly misinformed about wildlife. You will spend many many hours of your day educating people (who usually do not want to be educated) about things like deer "parking" where a mom will "park" her baby deer somewhere safe while she goes off to eat. Sometimes that will be in your yard. Just because you don't see the mom, doesn't mean she doesn't know what is going on.People will also do things thinking they are helping (Like feeding kitten formula to a squirrel baby, or putting a baby beaver in a bucket of water so it stays wet) that will quite often kill the animals.You have to be nice to them. It hurts sometimes. Especially in a situation like when a mom lets her 9 year old play with the baby raccoon that came up on the deck, and let it suck on her finger. That baby raccoon now has to die in most states. It did nothing wrong, the people did something wrong, but the raccoon has to die to be tested for rabies. (Which 99.99995 times out of 100 it will not have)

3) Heartbreaks come fast and hard. One day everything is peachy, and the next day someone brings a groundhog in with distemper, and suddenly every animal in your care is hideously ill and most of them will die horrible deaths and there is not a DAMNED THING you can do about it.That is one example of about 1000 I could give.

4) Wildlife vets are few and far between, they don't usually have emergency hours, and they are AMAZINGLY ...

Thats Moose. She's a dwarf raccoon that came in with a terrible fungal infection on her hands that basically put her 3 months behind her siblings. She's a great raccoon, but not releasable. She just doesn't wanna be a raccoon. She thinks shes humans.

This is what you look like when you are driving home from an event 300 miles from home, you've been on the road for a week, and 20 miles from home you get a call to come get these babies out of someones garage.

Shadow Blasko:This is what you look like when you are driving home from an event 300 miles from home, you've been on the road for a week, and 20 miles from home you get a call to come get these babies out of someones garage.

(I get so much hell for the way I look in this pic)

[i.imgur.com image 400x411]

What's with the hair? Is there something nesting in it? I keed, but I back you up on this. I have a friend I've known since high school that is a vet tech that works with local zoos when one of the monkeys or bears breaks a foot, and yeah, I've heard some of the stories about prices, regulations, yadda yadda. You need full time staff just to keep up with the rules and regulations.

I have great respect for people that do wildlife rehab. To be successful at it, I imagine a certain degree of clinical detachment is required. I don't think I could do it - I am an enormous crybaby when it comes to hurt animals.

It's weird - in a crisis with people, I'm the one you want around because I don't panic. But if an animal is involved, I dissolve in to a squawling mess.

My experience with wildlife rehab consists of putting a bird with a broken wing into a shoebox and taking it to the zoo so they could take care of it. I felt very accomplished at driving that shoebox across town. I helped - I'm a helper.

++Eleventy. All true to my expereinces(as an observer, not a rehabber myself).

I am married to a former wildlife rehabber, she did it for maybe 5 years (I dated her this entire time). The animals are incredible, and seeing a vet pin a wing bone on a small bird is effing incredible. Flight-testing a red tail was incredible, baby mountain lions are so adorable it hurts. They had a resident turkey vulture (permanently disfigured wing, used in education programs) that would follow you around and when you weren't looking untie your shoelaces. (You do not know disgusting until you've cleaned up turkey vulture vomit, BTW.)

But there is heartbreak, so much heartbreak. The euthanizing never gets easy, and weighed heavily enough that she eventually moved on.

I "caught" my first baby coon one day before and after picking cherries in Emmett, Idaho. I was 9 or so. My folks stopped first at a friends house, and my god- that womans tomatoes that she put on the sandwiches were the worst i ever have eaten in my life, to this day. Anyhow, we were leaving and my adoptive mom was chatting to the lady and my adoptive dad was off doing something, and mom said- oh look, a kitten is climbing my leg ! I was quick to grab the little one and advise her it was not, in fact, a kitty.So we then went cherry picking and i had Ricky in a box in the car, but we left the windows down too much and he escaped and i found him after a bit. Tada !

/he opened his cage and a window a couple of weeks later and escaped the house ..../end cool story, bra

Oh, I have broken a few state and federal laws in regards to a Crow, but I couldnt see driving an chick65 miles away from his family would help the bird. I raised him, fledged him, he flew away with his nestmates.Gandy still flies in this area with his Murder .

I had to do some court-ordered community service once and the group I chose to do my hours with was a local wildlife rescue organization. I spent many a weekend going out to piers to pull fishing line and hooks out of pelicans, and going on emergency calls anytime some idiot suburbanite "found" a baby woodland critter (aka captured it to show his/her snowflake, injured it, then called us.)

The little time I spent there was rewarding, but I could see that making a career out of it would be heartbreaking to see all the needless suffering and death on a regular basis.

Shadow Blasko:This is what you look like when you are driving home from an event 300 miles from home, you've been on the road for a week, and 20 miles from home you get a call to come get these babies out of someones garage.

HortusMatris:Shadow Blasko: This is what you look like when you are driving home from an event 300 miles from home, you've been on the road for a week, and 20 miles from home you get a call to come get these babies out of someones garage.

HortusMatris:Shadow Blasko: This is what you look like when you are driving home from an event 300 miles from home, you've been on the road for a week, and 20 miles from home you get a call to come get these babies out of someones garage.

Shadow Blasko:HortusMatris: Shadow Blasko: This is what you look like when you are driving home from an event 300 miles from home, you've been on the road for a week, and 20 miles from home you get a call to come get these babies out of someones garage.

First was a baby sparrow we found at a fast food place, running around in the enclosed patio. It has apparently fallen out of a nest in the eaves. We took it home, stopping to get meal worms on the way. The little guy took about two hours to become totally domesticated, following my wife around, and four hours to figure out that the meal worms were kept in the fridge. He would run over to the fridge and jump inside when the door was opened, finding the meal worm box and hanging onto it for dear life. He stayed with us for about two weeks, at which time he was flying around the apartment. He would come to us and sit on our fingers.

We took him back to the restaurant and released him in the patio area. We came back about a month later and there was this fat, sleek little sparrow who landed on our table and chirped at us, and ate food we put in front of him. He wouldn't allow us to pick him up, so he had apparently learned caution.

Second case was a seagull with a broken wing. I got a blanket from the car and my wife wrapped it up and held it, and I drove from Huntington Beach all the way to SJC to a wildlife vet. The gull squawked loudly and struggled for about 10 minutes, then it suddenly petered off. My wife figured that the bird's thinking went from "OH FARK I'VE BEEN TRAPPED BY A GIANT WHO IS GOING TO EAT ME to hmmmmm..... wait a minute, I'm warm in this snuggly thing, I've being stroked softly on my head and back, and there's this big creature who is singing and talking softly to me in a high pitched voice....hmmmmm.... this isn't bad." He stayed like that for over an hour until we got to the vet, at which time he lost it again. Don't know what happened to it....